


Eyes on Me

by surskitty



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Knifeplay, M/M, They don't actually end up having sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 16:53:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21164963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surskitty/pseuds/surskitty
Summary: Wildkat's haunted and one of the main suspects is in a mood.





	Eyes on Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lostboywriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostboywriting/gifts).

> For some reason, I have trouble getting Joshua and Sanae to actually fuck. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

They say Wildkat's haunted.

They say if you look through the window at the right time, at high noon when any respectable ghost would be hiding, you'll see people eating there even though it's never open and no one ever leaves. The lights are off, the door is locked, and to all appearances it ought to not be a cafe at all. How do you pay Shibuya rent without ever selling anything? 

Maybe it's a yakuza thing. Maybe it's open sometime you've never noticed, though how a cafe that smells of fresh coffee and curry and cakes moves all its stock when it's closed all the time is beyond you. 

Or maybe it's just haunted. 

* * *

"It's almost like you want them to notice," Joshua observes, scuffing the floor with his foot. "The seven mysteries of Cat Street: is that what you are?"

"The neighbors like a bit of wonder in their lives," he says back, and Joshua could almost believe it. Almost, if he didn't know Sanae scouts out the kids who look for ghosts and find them. 

It's how they met, after all. 

"We could give them a little more to wonder about," he offers. Sanae rolls his eyes -- he has no sense of humor some days -- but Joshua thinks he'll take him up on _something._ He has no backbone when it comes to his composer. Perhaps it's an angel thing, or just Sanae. "Gunshots, moans, weird stains."

"Paint for the next time I lock you out."

"Clawmarks on the door jamb," he adds, ignoring him. "A note in your handwriting you don't remember writing."

"Carbon monoxide poisoning."

"You think?"

"Only reason I'd talk to you." Low blow, Sanae, low blow. "Boss, I'm not decorating for Halloween." He pauses. "They might start asking about my opening hours." And Sanae runs a very respectable dead-only establishment. Joshua understands completely.

He slides in next to where Sanae's pretending to work on reports, and chirps, "Mr H, when are you open?" A little eyebrow wiggle and his meaning's as clear as the cafe is of customers. Not that he needs it: Joshua always visits for either business or pleasure, and if he isn't bringing up business and Sanae isn't clearly _busy,_ his motives should have been fairly obvious. 

Sanae knows damn well what he meant, but he checks his watch and hums rather than answering. What a disobedient feline he is. Eventually he decides he's got time (of course he does; making time for Joshua is literally one of his jobs) and he reaches up to ruffle Joshua's hair, then pulls him into a kiss.

Joshua bites him, then grabs him and keeps him from pulling away. This is what he wanted, but he's never quite satisfied without blood, and Sanae tugs on his hair as Joshua keeps worrying at him with his teeth. His angel tastes a little like paint, like he's been chewing on his brushes again, and Joshua croons, his pants tightening with added weight. He slips his gun out with his free hand, and without even looking Sanae twists it away from him. Spoilsport.

"I serve food in here, you know," Sanae says as he pulls away, and he really doesn't. Joshua can't even remember the last living customer he'd had, if there were any after Joshua, and in those days Joshua always was overcharged. "No hanky panky."

Ugh, fine. If Joshua can have sex in his own bar and lounge, Sanae should be willing to have him over a coffee table, but he can allow Sanae some idiosyncrasies. "My place or yours?"

He doesn't answer verbally, but his hidden wing wraps around him and they're both in Sanae's bedroom before Joshua has even prickled up properly. He knows Sanae's stronger than him, but simply because Joshua moves people without asking doesn't mean he likes it any more than his victims.

(Joshua considers that thought. No, if he tried leaving the Players in place they'd waste the whole day. Besides, it's funny.)

As Sanae strips his shirt off, his chest irritatingly toned even though he doesn't _do_ anything, he wonders if he can get away with the gun today. Weapons always add a certain spice, he finds, and Joshua holds his arms up in a silent order for Sanae to undress him, too.

"If you play nice, I'll hurt you later," Sanae promises, taking his shirt off by hand, and Joshua whines at his touch. He wants the fight now and the cuddling later, but Sanae always wants it backwards, and Joshua _supposes_ they can do it his way this time. He always makes it worth Joshua's while, anyway. 

Neither of them bother with removing their trousers just yet, Joshua out of familiarity with just how irritating Sanae can be when he thinks Joshua's pushed too far, and Sanae out of what Joshua suspects is an unrealistic attachment to verisimiltude, but Sanae gently pushes him down onto the bed and kisses him again. It's nice. Sanae is nice, when he wants to be, and sometimes also when Joshua _doesn't_ want to be. 

He wants his gun back. 

He lets Sanae kiss him for a while, obnoxiously gentle even as Joshua is deliberately a bit of a dead fish, but then he's had enough and he pushes him away. No, not off, come on, he's not changing his mind; he's just _bored._ "Put your mouth somewhere more useful," he snaps, and he'd be happy if Sanae decided that meant he needed to blow him but Sanae kisses his lower belly and _of course he does._ Sanae's sweet. It's dreadful.

It's relaxing, though, Sanae paying careful attention to every centimeter of his current form, and Joshua gently pets Sanae's head. He's not going to move if he doesn't have to, but Sanae probably wants him to stay put, and Joshua considers adding mood music. Perhaps Danse Macabre. 

No, Sanae would throw him out. He's done it before. 

"If I fall asleep on your bed, it's your fault," he announces, though he hasn't accidentally fallen asleep since he died, and Sanae laughs.

"Relax, boss," he says, momentarily making eye contact over his silly glasses, and Joshua does not blush because he is dead. His body wants to, though, and he supposes Sanae can have the satisfaction of his ears going pink even if his face won't flush. He has limits on looking ridiculous, even for Sanae.

Sanae kisses his breastbone, his face awfully close, and he looks up at him again right as he cups Joshua's crotch. Ah, damn, he'll admit it: Sanae is hot. He is even hot when he's being picky and doesn't want to play with live steel or firearms. "Hello," Joshua says, in much the same tone as for a rude kitty, and Sanae shakes his head. 

"Boss, don't make it weird," he chides, and he squeezes gently. Mmm, he won't make it weird if his Sanae can also follow through on his end. 

"It's only a penis today," he promises, and even a human one. Not a tentacle, ovipositor, slinky, or live pigeon. He knows Sanae doesn't find these things funny, at least not as a surprise. 

"Not what I'm worried about," Sanae mutters, but Joshua doesn't understand. He lays a final kiss on Joshua's collarbone, then gets off to shed their pants, though he could have simply banished them. Joshua blinks sleepily at him -- he's taking too long again -- but he's not going to help, not when Sanae wants to do this like they're normal. Like Joshua's ever been normal, or like Sanae remembers the concept. 

They both breathe a sigh of relief when what Joshua's packing is indeed normal, Sanae because he dislikes feeling like the butt of a joke and Joshua because he put it together in a bit of a hurry, and then Sanae playfully smacks his ass. Glorious sensation, Joshua welcomes you gladly, but Sanae doesn't do it again even though he _must_ know Joshua needs a bit of an edge to get his soul to tune down and take notice. He's too good at floating, just like Sanae ought to be. 

But Sanae's so good at inhabiting his bodies that Joshua almost wants to learn how, too, at least when he's got Sanae close and no immediate obligations. His old life can go rot, but this is nice. 

Sanae pulls him up for easier access, Joshua of no help at all, and he thinks it annoys him that Joshua's always so much deadweight if he's not immediately getting what he wants. Too bad for him, but Sanae's fingers rub around his anus and he feels a touch of cold and he freezes instinctively. Sanae's never cold. He's very conscientious about it. 

"You don't use any of this anyway," Sanae drawls, the flat of his knife tracing along his thighs and sides, and Joshua's eyes are wide. He thought Sanae might make him wait.

"I really don't," he agrees, his breath hitching, and Sanae flips it to rest the point right above his navel. Some days he'd like to tell Sanae to carve him out; others, he wants a brawl. He doesn't know what he wants today, but if he pushes Sanae might not oblige him at all. "Any day now, I might tune up and never come back."

Some composers have erased themselves that way, he's heard, thrown themselves wing-first into the firmament and joined the Higher Plane one way or another. Their cities even usually survive it, more or less. "You think that's a good idea?" Sanae asks.

_No._ He nods fiercely. "You and Megumi are the only ones who'd notice." And Sanae would adjust soon enough. 

It might destroy Megumi, but he's half-destroyed already. Poor man, held together by the composer's glue and his composer could erase him without a second thought. Few people deserve that, but the composer judged and found him worthy.

Sanae presses down. He's obnoxiously gentle even with a knife, neither tearing nor wrapping it in his psi, but Joshua shudders anyway, his skin reknitting itself instinctively with nothing to block it. There's no blood, either. Just him and Sanae, and that impersonal care that Joshua might hate. "Sanae," he tries. 

"You're a real brat, you know that?" Oh, he certainly does, but Sanae _puts the knife away_ and Joshua can't take it; he's making this a fight. His suit reforms around him as he tunes up to push off Sanae and fucking strangle him, the absolute tease, but Sanae moves with him and stays exactly as he was. Naked, disappointingly unarmed, vulnerable. It makes Joshua sick.

"If you won't fight me properly, you can just stay put," he orders, and oddly enough, Sanae listens. He hardly moves as Joshua curses him out and wraps around him to pull him down to the bed and -- if Joshua was less violent about it, he'd say it's hugging.

Sanae lets him. 

* * *

They say Wildkat's haunted, and maybe it is. No one ever sees who leaves the buckets of paint outside, or how it gets tagged and cleaned up and tagged again. But what a few people _do_ know is this: the owner's kind, and gentle, and always certain he knows what's best. And whether he does or not -- well, there's a god who hasn't figured that one out. 

He never will.


End file.
